I have made the mistake of buying a 2001 1.8 turbo NB for my daughter. She loves it and it ran fine until the timing belt went. I had a quote of 4 to 5K so I went with a local garage who did a good job for 2k. Now it's time for a sticker and I am chasing the engine light. Did o2 sensors, MAF, plugs, coils and then noticed the secondary air pump hoses were cracked and in replacing them put 12 volts to the secondary air pump, pump was not working. This is just a 12 volt air pump that should run with 12 volts hooked up to it.Pump is +/- $500. I went to a local junk yard and took one out of a 1997 passat (completely different engine and model # on pump but the hose inlet and outlets were the same). Be sure to take the plug from the new used pump, change the bracket and wire the beast in. Tight fit but you can get it in. Hopefully this will save someone some dough. Also find a used MAF in the junkyards if possible, call them all, $50 instead of $250.

Did you find out what was wrong? It sounds like my daughters beetle is doing the same thing. It just spins the engine without any resistance at all. If you depress the gas pedal it backfires??? any help will be appreciated.

Is it fairly easy to change a timing belt on a 2000 VW 2.0L in a Beetle? I have changed them in Chevy's, Nissan's, Mitsubishi's but not on one of these. about how long should it take and what can I expect it to cost me if I do the work?

Hopefully the belt did not break already! If so one or more of the valves are probably bent. That can cost up to $4,000 at a shop, and if you do it your self (bring head to a machine shop) approx. $2,500. If you got to it before it broke you should change the water pump at the same time. I figure 6 hrs or so and $250. It is tough to get at and take your time disconnecting all those foolish connectors.

I have a 1999 VW beetle with 150,000 miles on it. My husband boosted it off for me and inadvertently connected the booster cables up backwards. After that my car has been acting odd. It will start for a few seconds and then die, epsecially if you put it in reverse. No warning lights come on and no fuses are blown. The only fuse that was intially blown was the one for the radio that I replaced. Any suggestions?? Often now yuo have to rev the car up to keep it started, once you get going and its been running for a few minutes, its fine!?!?!? :confuse:

Did you ever find out what was causing the engine to do this? I am having the exact same problem except my belt didn't break it spun some teeth off the belt and would not turn the cam. It did not bend any valves and the pistons are fine. I also changed the timing belt and made sure it was timed perfect. The timing marks were set exactly where the Chilton manual says to put them. I set the timing belt tension pulley exactly where the manual says to set it. I then attempted to start the engine and it spun over quickly but did not start. The engine sounded as if there was no resistance or no compression. Also just like the person said, if you depressed the accelerator, the engine would do a slight backfire. Compression is good and there is strong spark and plenty of fuel to the cylinders. Does anybody have any ideas as to what the problem may be???

I own a 2006 VW Beetle and recently it gave me a problem on the highway. I had stopped behind a row of cars waiting to exit, and once the cars cleared out of the way I wanted to get quickly up to the speed of the other lanes, so pressed fairly hard on the gas and it slightly accelerated, but right as I was expecting it to kick up to speed the way it normally does, it pulled back and my speed dropped drastically. I tried to accelerate but it wouldn&#146;t do anything. I pulled my foot completely off the accelerator and pressed it again and it behaved normally. This has happened once before in the life of the car, and on the first occasion all of my radio presets were on random stations when i drove the next day, although I hadn't looked right before and didn't look right after, so this could be unrelated. I took it to the shop each time this occurred and they didn&#146;t have any answers. has anyone heard of a problem like this before?

bought a 05 beetle had been in a flood everything work, engine has slight shake while iddling. Any sugestion? Maybe injector, ignition,. DO YOU THINK THAT THERE MIGHT BE WATER IN THE AUTO TRANS.? How can I tell if trans. has water?It shifts fine. Any sugestion will be appreciated thaks

I have a 2001 VW Beetle just got it about 6 months ago and already had to have the motor replaced. now I have oil in my coolant overflow, that is the only place I have seen it. Can anyone help me please :sick:

My car was running fine with no problems in the morning; fast forward to the afternoon; it's dead on the side of the freeway with a fried engine. We were driving along, the coolant light blinked red. Within seconds we heard a distinct noise, like a knock followed by a continuous sound like paper flapping in the fan shroud. We were in the left lane on the freeway searching for a break in traffic to move to the right shoulder. The oil and check engine lights blinked on and then off. Just as we found a clearing to get off the road the car lost power. We barely made it off the road. We shut the car off and water and steam spewed and shot from the back tail pipe. Water was in the front wheel well and nowhere else not even on the engine.We expected to see a red hot engine but did not. The car had no compression. We had it towed to a VW service center. They said the engine is shot (pistons melted into the cylinder walls) and has to be replaced. They've quoted $6900 and no guarantee the repairs stop there. HELP! Anyone have ideas of how a car goes from running fine to a catastrophic event in a matter of minutes? Should I just give the car back to VW and call it a loss? I'm frustrated!!!

i owned a 1999vw beetle. all i had was problems of all kinds. finally i got rid of it. i say to everybody, unless you have plenty of money to spend on repairs, dont ever purchase a vw beetle.they are a sorry car :sick: :sick:

I was changing the light bulb in my girlfriends car. Sometime while I was changing it the epc light on the dash came on, now I have to get a new bulb and replace the old one but does this sound right? Did I do something to make this light come on, somehow, while taking out the light? Will it go out when I get the replacement light, I hope

My daughter's 98 beetle (2.0 gas) one day just wouldn't start. Turned over, battery new, just wouldn't start. Came out the next day fired right up? Wouldn't start a few days later at her high school parking lot. Found a lot of info. on VW forums --on a whim shot starting fluid into air cleaner and she started up and ran fine for a few days. Checked fuel pump ... it is working fine. Any thoughts? Check engine light is NOT on.

It might be the engine oil cooler. Located between the oil filter and the block. Mine had a small hole in it and it allowed water and oil to mix. Better check the engine oil dipstick you may have water in the oil. You can check the cooler by taking it off and submerging it in water and use air hose to pressurize if it hase hole you will get bubbles.

Has anyone else had problems where the gas door won't release? Ours finally got stuck permanently. Mechanic showed us a release wire we can pull, from inside the trunk. I'm not the incredible hulk but I'm not all that weak either and it's almost impossible. My wife tried once and gave up. Now we just leave it closed but not pushed closed so it latches. Lots of little problems like this but this is the latest.

Did you ever figure out the problem with this? my gas 98 beetle finally will crank after the shot of starting fluid in the air cleaner, but whenever i put it in third or basically get above 30 it has a heavyloss of power and feels like it automatically shifts down to 2nd... now this is a manual car, and thoughts? Some kind of electrical components inside gone bad? :confuse:

I have a 2006 covertible beetle and I've been having the same issue off and on for almost a year. I keep taking it to the dealer and it seems like the problem hasn't been resolved. Was your issue fixed? I love my car but this problem is scary. Any info you could share would be great. Thanks!

I have a hessing noise coming from the motor and the brake pedal is hard to push.I know it must be a vaccum leak .There is a small can like item around all the vaccum lines ,could that be leaking or bad? what is that part?Thanks

The issue was never formally identified, but my check engine light went on a couple months ago and the car started acting up even worse, so my oxygen sensor was replaced under the suspicion that it turned on the light, and I haven't had any problems since then! The dealer did say that sometimes a faulty oxygen sensor can result in minor lagging of the car, so I'm assuming this was the cause of my problem, even though the dealer was not aware of any case as drastic as mine.

I have a 2003 new beetle convertible and whenever it gets to be under 40 degrees it gives me a hard time starting. Has anyone seen this before? and If so any advice. Please please I need my car to work.

Me and my wife just tried going to church and we didn't even get halfway down the street when the car started shaking. It doesn't have a full tank of gas, and we were going at fairly low rpm when it was doing it. We parked it for a bit to decide what to do, and when I drove it back to our house, I went a bit faster to get the rpm going, and it basically stopped. Also, the check engine light is on, and came on RIGHT when the shuddering happened. Any ideas?

I just replaced my Radiator, Mass Air Flow Sensor, and Auxiliary Fan Control Unit on my 2002 VW Beetle TDI, when we put everything back together and drove it was fine for about 3 miles then it started "jumping" when I accelerated. I don't know if it was something we did when working on it or if it is something new. Any idea what could be happening?